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A 52-year-old software engineer has built a habitable house for just £4,000 - albeit with a lot of hard graft and a certain amount of scavenging.

Steve James slogged for "10 months of actual building time" over four years to put together his Galloway straw domicile, dubbed "The Gatehouse" and constructed with a timber frame, straw walls protected by lime mortar, and a planet-hugging turf roof. Amenities are basic - water supplied purely by rainfall and batteries for 'leccy - but James describes the fruits of his labour as a "cuddly house".

James told the BBC: "I have never built a house before but I have done a bit of joinery and have done a lot of practical work. Most of my life I have been a hands-on worker."

Among the items James didn't have to stump up for were a Velux roof window, shower tray and front window - all picked up from other people's unwanted building materials - as well as a "Tudor-style" panelled wood ceiling assembled from solid pine changing cubicle doors "salvaged from old Victorian public baths in Govan". From the bargain basement department came a 50 quid wood-burning stove, £100 in batteries and £150 worth of reclaimed joists.

The total outlay was, the BBC explains:

£600 supplies for volunteers

£500 sarking (wooden roof boarding)

£400 floorboards

£400 pond liner

£300 straw

£200 plumbing

£150 reclaimed joists

£150 plywood

£150 equipment hire

£150 glass

£100 quicklime

£100 wiring

£100 tarpaulin

£100 paint/varnish

£100 batteries

£100 fixings

£100 miscellaneous

£100 fuel for power tools

£70 water pump

£50 water heater

£50 stove chimney

James reckons his DIY straw house points to an affordable solution in the face of inflated house prices, and that a three-bedroom version could be yours for just £10,000.

He concluded: "It is something that anybody could easily learn to do most of, with help. The real cost of a house is fairly small. It is always the land that makes about 85 per cent of the cost. Adding the compound interest to the final cost of a mortgage reduces the actual house price component of the total to as little as two per cent."